It’s Monday, March 20, and Shonen Jump Championship Orlando is over. But the last Shonen Jump Championship of the current Advanced format is just five days away, so join us as we begin the countdown to Shonen Jump Championship Long Beach!
Newcomer Wins Shonen Jump Championship Orlando!
Michael Lux scored a massive upset this past weekend, destroying veteran duelist and two-time Shonen Jump Championship Top 8 competitor Roy St. Clair in a knock-down drag-out three game finals confrontation! Armed with Treeborn Frog, Lux threw Monarch after Monarch at St. Clair and overwhelmed him with a series of gutsy plays and a little luck.
The Top 8 ushered four competitors into the exclusive two-time Top 8 club. St. Clair, Daniel Fitzgerald, Roberto Martinez, and Emon Ghaneian have each taken their spot in the history books, proving that they each possess deadly consistency.
Five Days Until Shonen Jump Championship Long Beach
Following hot on the heels of Shonen Jump Orlando comes Shonen Jump Long Beach! The best of the West will face off just five days from now, and many duelists from all over North America are making the trip!
Team Scoop and several other East Coast teams are venturing to California to try and steal another win. Competition will be hot, especially after the East Coast’s victory in the Coast Vs. Coast confrontation last December at Shonen Jump San Francisco. As the last Shonen Jump of the current format, it’s bound to be an epic event. The final tournament of the current era is definitely going to send this format out with a bang!
Upper Deck Entertainment Demo Team Test Now Available
Find out all about the Demo Team program and how by reading the Demo Team Policy Document. You can also check out an FAQ that covers some of the program’s finer points right here, too.
If you’ve got questions about the Demo Team that aren’t covered in the Policy or FAQ documents, you can even email Upper Deck with your inquiry at demo@upperdeck.com.
Joining the UDE Demo Team is the perfect way to get involved with the game you love, teaching new players and earning rewards for your hard work. If you want to help your local Yu-Gi-Oh! community grow, joining the Demo Team and teaching others how to play the game is the best way to do it!
This Week on Metagame.com
A pair of Shonen Jump Championships frame this week, and we here at Metagame.com are hyped! Get ready for seven days jam-packed with groundbreaking material.
On Monday, Mike Rosenberg takes a look at Magical Dimension, the most influential card introduced in the Spellcaster’s Judgment Structure Deck. He investigates the strengths and weaknesses that Dimension presents, and pays special attention to how it can be played in Gravekeeper decks. Loaded with cool tricks and combos you may have never seen before, it’s a great read for anyone looking to get the most out of Spellcasters.
Shadow of Infinity was just released, but this Tuesday, you’ll get to see our first preview of Enemy of Justice! Jerome McHale shows you five new Yu-Gi-Oh! GX cards from Jaden’s arsenal: H - Heated Heart, E - Emergency Call, R - Righteous Justice, O - Oversoul, and HERO Flash!! The Elemental Heroes get monster-search, piercing damage, recursion, spell and trap destruction, and more in this awesome set of cards, and Jerome's got the skinny on all five, plus a decklist to show you how to use them!
I follow up the next day with a look at two more Enemy of Justice cards. While we’ve seen plenty of cards from Chazz, Jaden, Zane, and Syrus’s decks over the last few expansions, Alexis fans have been left with only a handful of monsters. I'll show you a pair of new monsters that break that trend when I sneak a peek at Cyber Tutu and the amazing Cyber Gymnast. If you miss Tribe-Infecting Virus, then you won’t want to miss this article
Plus, I’ll take on an Ancient Gear Beast deck in The Apotheosis. Shadow of Infinity gave us plenty of support for Ancient Gear monsters, and in an era that’s dominated by Dekoichi and Magical Merchant, Ancient Gear Beast might just be the Gear monster of choice. Make Dr. Vellian Crowler proud and check out the fixed version of this powerful, unpredictable deck!
Thursday kicks off a double-header back-to-back Jaden-fest, as Curtis Schultz reviews important rulings for the new cards introduced in Jaden’s Duelist Pack. How many life points do you get when Elemental Hero Steam Healer destroys Fusilier Dragon, the Dual-Mode Beast? What happens when Drillroid attacks a defense position Elemental Hero Bubbleman that’s equipped with Bubble Blaster? Curtis answers all your questions this week.
Once you know the rulings for Jaden’s cards, check out Julia’s Solid Ground article. Jaden’s Duelist Pack has distinguished itself as a popular set amongst collectors, but some of Jaden’s new cards have a surprisingly high play potential. Julia explores them all in their entirety this week as she digs for creative and useful ways to play with Jaden’s newest cards.
Also this week, Jae Kim blends a little bit of Chaos tech into an Elemental Hero Fusion strategy. Elemental Hero Wildedge and Elemental Hero Shining Flare Wingman mix it up with Chaos Sorcerer to create an Advanced-format powerhouse that any Jaden fan will approve of. If you like Elemental Heroes and have always wanted to play with Shining Flare Wingman, don't miss this article!
Also this week, we’ll take a look at all three Duelist Pack promo cards in a two-article series. Upper Deck Entertainment departed from its usual formula of promo selection, giving us some of Yugi’s classic cards that had never been released before on North American shores! We'll break them down and show you the ins and outs of each, demonstrating some important and creative uses for Treasure Map, Blockman, and Hero Spirit!
We also welcome to the site our newest featured writer, Matt Peddle! A star member of Team Superfriends and a Top 8 competitor at Shonen Jump Championship Indianapolis, he'll be appearing here on Metagame.com on a weekly basis. This week, he gives his unique insider perspective into the decks that Team Scoop and the Superfriends took to Shonen Jump Durham, discussing what they intended to do and why things didn’t go precisely as planned.
Finally, we’ll turn the Limelight on John Jensen, member of Team Nexus and Shonen Jump Champion of Atlanta. Competitive, driven, and backed by one of the best teams in the nation, Jensen almost fell into obscurity after a finals appearance at Shonen Jump Orlando in 2005. He came roaring back in the new Advanced format to capture a Championship, and we’ll sit down with him to talk about his team, how he got into the game, and his dueling highs and lows.
That’s it for our scheduled week, but don’t forget that we’ll have live coverage from Shonen Jump Championship Long Beach this weekend! The Advanced format is going to go out with a bang, as one more Shonen Jump Championship finishes out the current Yu-Gi-Oh! era. Don’t miss any of the action this Saturday and Sunday!
—Jason Grabher-Meyer
Contributing Editor, Metagame.com